Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Happy Release Day to Jack L. Pyke!

We are thrilled and excited to welcome Jack L. Pyke back to Sinfully today as she celebrates the release of her new novella Shaded Chains, which is out today… Go check it out!

Intimate Relations: Author… Reader.

Huge thanks to Monique, Debra, Mark and the guys for hosting my third day of my seven-day tour with Shaded Chains. Yesterday I was with Kimmer’s Erotic Book Banter, looking at falling in love with the Horror of Scotland, and tomorrow I’m with the Blogger Girls, doing a quick-fire Q&A session with readers, so please check me out there too!

Today we kick off with a reader question, and it’s one hell of an intriguing one!

Benedicte: If a reader gave you an idea for a story, would you accept writing it?

Jack: You know, this reader’s question really hit the mark between the intimate relations between author and author when it comes to writing the likes of Shaded Chains. Would I be interested in writing a story if someone gave me their permission to use their rough concept for that story? Could I…?

Well a few years back, an Event known as the Dear Author challenge looked at readers submitting a photo and letter to an author, and the author then chose which Dear-Author letter and picture prompt they’d like to write. Many authors take part in this, so you’ve got to be quick if you see a letter you like, and readers are so damn creative and passionate about what they want, you have to really listen to what they’re saying.

The letter I chose became the base for Shaded Chains (previously titled His), and it included a photo. It showed a lovely tough guy just wearing work boots, who lay on a mat, holding his naked sub as they spooned together. It came with a reader’s note that said they wanted a story where a usually loving and tentative Dom falls from grace and has to get his sub back by… much darker means.

The photo captured them in the aftermath, and there was just something so stunning about being caught in the fallout of whatever had taken them there. I love these kinds of challenges! It always amazes me where a picture can take you, and how just by looking and asking and turning around questions, the answers can lead into the full complexity of a relationship.

When I looked at the photo, there was just so much trust in the hold, so much familiarity and experience between sub and Dom. In Shaded Chains, Alex and Ross are handled as an established couple and very established in their D/s relationship because of this. Sometimes that can be harder to focus on as a writer because readers are coming into their relationship halfway through. The need there is to look at working empathy levels and how to get readers to empathize without them having that whole new relationship start and insight.

Sometimes it’s hard, but as most relationships have their fights and insecurity points at all stages, it wasn’t hard to see where the conflict could come from. Ross’s reactions are a little extreme, but so is the way he feels for Alex, and vice-versa. I think for me, it’s just interesting to see how a natural Dom would react when faced with a sub who works in a dangerous profession, if any inadequacies would rear and conflict with the Dom or if there’d be a challenge to any stereotypes that onlookers might have for a Dom and his sub. There’s a lot of sadness between Ross and Alex, but their stability hopefully shows they’re there for the duration because they’ve already been through so much.

So would I pick up the challenge of writing to a single reader’s need for a story? Yes, every damn time. Like with the Dear Author challenge, it’s an intimate relationship between author and reader, and it’s why I love the concept of the Dear Author letters that allows that relationship to play out, because after first writing to hit a note in myself over writing, I ultimately write for readers.

Thanks again to the guys here for hosting me, and if you’re still with me and reading this – please enter the giveaway to win a copy of Shaded Chains! Leaving a comment on my publisher’s website will also give you extra chances, so please come and say hi!

Shaded Chains

Jack L. Pyke

Synopsis

“Say my fucking name.”

Alex Gardner is a psychiatric nurse, Ross McKendrik a tattoo artist: both know the fears and strains of caring for an old man with dementia: Ross’s father. When lines between father and son are crossed and trust is broken between Alex and Ross—between a sub and Dom—Ross is in a fight for his life to earn the right to hear his sub say his name again. Only having grown up in the Scottish Highlands, Ross’s methods are a little... dangerous, his methods a little... dark. Love is about to get very, very tough.

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Meet Jack L. Pyke

Jack blames her dark writing influences on living close to one of England’s finest forests. Having grown up hearing a history of kidnappings, murders, strange sightings, and sexual exploits her neck of the woods is renowned for, Jack takes that into her writing, having also learned that human coping strategies for intense situations can sometimes make the best of people have disastrously bad moments. Redeeming those flaws is Jack’s drive, and if that drive just happens to lead to sexual tension between two or more guys in a D/s relationship, Jack’s the first to let nature take its course.